


Something Like Sastifaction

by Ivy_Adair



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abandonment, Description of Battle Wounds, Description of Terminal Illness, Fallout Big Bang, Fallout Big Bang 2016, Fanart, Found Families, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old, Guns, Healing, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Loss of Parent(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Past Femslash, Past Femslash Relationship, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Present Tense, Terminal Illnesses, fobb 2016, letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 13:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7465653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_Adair/pseuds/Ivy_Adair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-Five years after the Courier liberated the Mojave, Rose of Sharon Cassidy has little to live for. Her wife, Veronica, is dead and all of her friends have moved on. In a world where the Courier is a folk hero, Cass makes her living riding the coattails of her past fame. She's old, tired and her drinking is out of control. </p><p>One night, she meets a boy in an alley whose mother has disappeared. He's lost, angry and hurt. Even though she thinks she's likely to be the worst person for the job, the boy and Cass adopt each other. Slowly, the two heartbroken people learn to let go of the past and hold on to each other. When the kid's past catches up to him, Cass sees no other option than to strap up and save the day, one last time. - Written for the Fallout Big Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Like Sastifaction

**Author's Note:**

> This was a very long journey! If you are a tumblr follower of mine, then you know that during the big bang - July 10th, specifically - I lost my Grandmother. I just wanted to thank, again, the people who've sent me words of encouragement, they've meant the world to me. And, I'd doubly like to thank my wonderful artist collaborator [Antivanonmytongue](http://antivanonmytongue.tumblr.com/) for sticking with me when I went AWOL. 
> 
> And, speaking of [Antivanonmytongue](http://antivanonmytongue.tumblr.com/), they have made some WONDERFUL art for this piece. I'm so absolutely in love with it. Please take a look:  
> 
> 
>   
>    
>    
>  [Direct link here!](http://antivanonmytongue.tumblr.com/private/147560452679/tumblr_oahb9wrUBM1qe4ao8)   
> 
> 
> Isn't it gorgeous? Everyone, please go and send your love to them!! I was truly blessed to be paired with such a talented artist. 

The world tilts a little to the left as Cass stumbles out of the Atomic Wrangler. She huffs as she straightens herself up, thinking about how twenty-five years ago the twins would never have dreamed of cuttin’ her off, not after she’d strapped up and gone into battle with the Courier, The famed ‘Liberator of the Mojave’. Now, just as she’s finally getting to the point where her gaze starts to fuzz and that pain in her chest finally eases, Francine picks up her glass and sets it behind the counter. It’s a message as clear as any and Cass ain’t the begging type; besides, she’s bound to have a bottle at home. She can’t help but think that James’d never dream of cutting her off like that, especially after Cass had walked in on him performing some ‘diagnostics’ on FISTO. But, both the male twin and the sexbot had been ‘mysteriously absent’ from the bar that night and Francine is too much of a hardass to let Cass get away with anything. 

The broken chunks of pavement and loose gravel crunch underneath her boots as she trudges home. Faintly, she can hear the bustle of New Vegas and the sounds of people having the best and worst days of their lives. Freeside itself is quiet and the air nicer; the taste of it is better, more like the piping hot sand and the impossibly warm sun and less like the oil and exhaust of the securitrons and that damn monorail. Were it just a touch darker - an impossibility thanks to the bright neon signs - Cass could almost imagine she was out in the desert again. These days, with Cass gettin’ on in her years she feels more like a bird in a cage. She can see the beautiful sunsets out over the wastes that she’d roamed in her youth and her heart longs to be out there again, but her damn body with its damn faulty bits and aging parts keep her locked into the vicinity of Freeside. 

At sixty-two, Cass is just too damn old. 

A sudden discordant clank of metal on metal jars her from her musings. She blinks twice, looking around to realize she’s standing in front of her building. She hears rustling, the sounds of something with small hands digging. She huffs again, reaching for the shotgun at her back and fighting off the wince as her shoulder catches and snaps. A soft groan escapes her, a silent curse against the effects of time and a life of hard living. Still, she’s not too old to shoot a damn rat. Though the alcohol has her vision swimming, Cass rounds the corner and raises her gun. 

A startled cry greets her. “Don’t shoot!”

She lowers the shotgun, eyes narrowed to see in the shadows. “Come outta there, whoever you are.”

A moment later, a child or teen - Cass could never tell how old kids were supposed to be - steps hesitantly into the light. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’.”

Cass looks the boy up and down. “You’re that kid that lives on the bottom floor.”

“Yeah, and you’re that old-ass drunk who lives above us,” the kid shoots back. 

She snorts, but doesn’t argue with him. He glares at her; in the meager light Cass can see his eyes are as dark as the night around them. But, dark as they are, the kid’s emotions shine through with an unmistakable glint. He inclines his head to change his stare from seething to something akin to defiance. She takes a moment to sling the shotgun on to her back, using the action as a cover to weigh her thoughts. The bottle of whiskey sitting upstairs in her home is calling to her, telling her to let the kid be and crack it open. The pain in her chest screams at her, a voice as sweet as cactus honey with a pneumatic right hook, telling her to not leave the kid alone. The pain wins.

“Why’re you digging through the garbage, kid?”

“None of your business.”

“Where’s your Ma?”

Even in the dim light of the alley she can see the kids lower lip jutting out. She’s hit a nerve, which tells her more than he realizes. Cass remembers his mother well: a woman with sallow, gaunt skin; dull, lifeless hair and lips that mushed together, all telltale signs of a Jet addict. Cass wonders if the woman is dead or just off on a bender, either way it doesn’t really matter; the kid’s already digging through garbage, which means there must not be much inside their apartment. 

“Leave me alone.”

“Did something happen to her?”

The kid glares, his lower lip curling as he snarls, “I said, leave me alone!”

Cass sighs, holding her hands up. “Have it your way, kid.”

She turns to leave. The aching pang in her chest intensifies, in her mind it hisses like a powerfist and glares like a pretty girl disappointed. Finally, she pushes it down and leaves the kid scowling in the alleyway. Hell, Cass has disappointed a lot of people in her life and couldn’t rightly see a reason to change now. 

* * *

In an unprecedented windfall, Cass finds three whiskey bottles stashed around her squalid apartment, all in various states of fullness. The remains of the first lies scattered in broken chunks next to a drying spot on the cracked drywall. The second bottle lies empty on its side amidst the rest of the items that had previously been sitting on the worn out old card table that serves as Cass’s dining table, desk, coffee table and occasional closet. The third bottle is half empty and curled up in her arms like a sinful teddy bear. There still hadn’t been enough of the amber nectar to get her good and drunk, but she’s consumed enough to shut out the voices in her head: the memories that prick and draw water from her eyes. 

The nasty, broken linoleum floor is hard and ragged against her body, but the idea of moving feels like treason. She’s well enough on her way to a good drunken stupor when a sound rises from underneath her. At first, her alcohol-hazed mind registers the sound as a cat or a baby mole rat crying. She groans and lets out a hiss as she turns her head to the side and her cheek catches the edge of what remains of the adhesive used on the floor two centuries ago. Her feet are numb, she realizes belatedly as she tries to wriggle herself into rolling over. Slowly, her head clears and she realizes the sound drifting through her floor isn’t a creature, but the kid from before. 

A battle wages between her alcohol-dazed mind and the pain in her chest. The alcohol caresses her, fluffing up the fuzziness of her thoughts and dreamily suggests that she just go back to drinking and sleeping. Her chest aches and she can hear the girl whose sweetness could make a deathclaw purr fuss at her for not helping. 

A voice from elsewhere in the building bellows, **“quit that fuckin’ crying!”** It’s the neighbor across the hall from the kid. Cass can remember the near-violent screaming matches between him and the kid’s mother. The man’s an ex-raider, a real piece of shit. 

The soft sobs stop and Cass is met with silence once again. She sighs, takes another swig from the bottle she’s cradling in her arms and wills herself to pass out again. 

* * *

Pain lances through her skull like a white-hot knife. The empty bottle in her arms clatters to the floor with a sound that’s like an explosion behind her eyes. She’s on her back, right arm numb and trapped underneath her. The light of the mid-day sun streams in through the cracks between the pieces of aged wood that cover her windows. Without thinking, Cass opens one eye blearily. 

Regret is immediate and cruel. 

The light feels as if she’s being stabbed in the brain with a thermal lance. It’s all she can do to curse and throw an arm over her eyes. She lies there, head throbbing for several minutes before the pain and nausea finally cease. She tries again, sitting up with her eyes slammed shut. She cradles her face in her hands, breathing deeply as she finally opens her eyes. Even through her hands, the light feels bright, like the surface of the sun is just outside her boarded up window. Cass rolls to her knees; arthritis pain shrieks through her body, leaving her hissing from the indignity that comes with suddenly being reminded by your worn-out body that you’re just not as young as you used to be. Crawling to the card table, she raises her arm above her head and slaps her hand against the surface. There’s nothing on the table. After a moment, she remembers throwing everything on to the floor the night before. Feeling around with her hands, she finally finds her quarry: a pair of sunglasses. They had been Boone’s, a little gift from him after he and Six had left the Mojave - and her - behind. Relief fills her instantly as she slaps them on to her face. 

Finally she clambers to her feet, grunting at the way her body snaps and cracks with early-morning stiffness. She hobbles into her little kitchenette and cracks open a cabinet. The door creaks, the hinge threatening to let go from the wood. Cass huffs at the cavernous emptiness that greets her and remembers that she spent the last of the caps in her pocket on booze at the Wrangler. With a sigh, she retrieves her shotgun and slings it over her back. If she wants to eat, she has to find work. 

She’s almost out the door when she pauses and glances over her shoulder towards the back of her tumbledown home. There’s a pre-war sideboard pressed against the back wall of her apartment; it’s easily the cleanest thing in her entire apartment. Cass polishes it once a week, using a dry cloth to keep the dust and debris away. Once a month she takes the leftover oil from her shotgun and massages it into the wood, to keep the ancient piece shining. Cass steps over to it, running her fingers reverently along the smooth surface. Her mind fills with memories; she can still hear the shriek of delight that echoed around the destroyed department store they found it in. She stops in the center of the sideboard, eyes glued on to the ancient powerfist resting on a stand. She sighs and fingers the set of holotags draped across the stand’s base.

**_Veronica Renata Santangelo_ **

She clears her throat, wipes her eyes and nods before turning on her heel and marching out of her door without a single look back. 

Outside, the sound of the dumpster clanking open is enough to make Cass want to use a bullet to stop the sudden sharp stab of her headache. She passes by the alley on the way out on to the main street and once again, she sees the kid from downstairs digging through the trash. He pauses, looking up at her with tired eyes. 

“Your Ma ever come home?”

“None of your business, you stupid old drunk.”

Cass shrugs, adjusts the weight of the old firearm on her back and walks away. 

* * *

Cass makes her living by her gun, always has and always will; didn’t always used to be a hired gun, though. But with her caravanning days behind her, there’s not a whole lot else she can do. Even two decades on, the Courier’s name still gets some weight and people are always lookin’ for one of the Liberator of the Mojave’s trusted companions to have their back. Most times she’s there for show, like some kind of a museum relic meant more to scare people away than actually pose real danger. Sometimes she supposes that the idea should bother her, that she should feel like she’s just riding her friend’s coattails. But it keeps her fed and more importantly, keeps her from drying out. Occasionally, Cass would get a real job and spend the day with her shotgun pressed to her shoulder and the smell of gunpowder clinging to her clothes. Those days were the nearest she had to the fabled ‘Good Ol’ Days’ old people always talked about. Them days were hard, on her body and on her mind because those were the days that the ghosts of the past came to visit. Once, she swore a raider had a dog’s head for a helmet, but when she’d run after his corpse she discovered it was only a trick of her mind. The nights that followed those jobs usually saw Cass thinkin’ about the Courier and whether or not she was still alive and still with Boone. Cass liked to think that a love like theirs, the kind that only came with second chances, would last forever. As nice as such a thing was to think about, the thought still fills her with a touch of bitterness. It wasn’t fair of her, she knew, to be hateful towards her friends and their happiness, especially not when Cass had had thirteen years of joy herself. But thirteen years wasn’t enough; it wasn’t the lifetime she’d been promised when their hands had been bound.

Today, she’s hired to escort a tourist through Freeside even though the little town has never been safer. Still, she charges per hour and not per job, and Cass knows better than to question what essentially amounts to free caps for taking a walk across town. The man she’s escorting would politely be called portly, with a red, shiny face and a shining bald head to match. He peppers her with questions about the Dam and what it was like to be there. She answers as shortly as she can without completely blowing the guy off. He asks the same things Cass always gets asked: how true are the stories? Did the Courier really let the NCR sniper kill Caesar? How did they manage to kick the NCR out? What about the stories of the mysterious Mr. House?

When she’s got her wits about her, Cass can’t entirely blame the tourists for their curiosity. She can still remember distinctly thinking that Simone had had a better chance of surviving another bullet to the head than defeating the Legion, kicking out the NCR and outmaneuvering House. 

Still, the thought of her friend being reduced to what essentially amounts to less than ten percent of the things they accomplished in the Mojave back then rankles Cass. They’d helped so many people, righted so many wrongs, but all people wanted to hear about was the damn Dam. She pulls out all the stops, quickens her pace and practically sprints to the edge of New Vegas. The man trails behind her, struggling to keep up. By the time he reaches her, he’s breathing hard. As he opens his mouth to ask another question, Cass interrupts him:

“Right, here we are. If you’d just pay my fee, I’ll be on my way.”

He looks too dazed from exertion and her brusque manner to argue. He digs around in his pockets and pulls out the caps he promised her. As he dumps them into her awaiting hands, he asks her the one thing she hates more than anything to be asked:

“What happened to the Courier’s other companions?”

Cass stuffs the caps into her pockets and wipes her hands on her pants. “It was twenty-five years ago, what d’you think happened?” She grits her teeth, words grinding out through them like they’re being forced out, “we got old.”

“But, are you the only one still alive?”

When he looks at her expectantly, Cass rolls her eyes. “I know what you’re trying to ask me. The thing is you’re asking like it’s about some character in an old comic book. They aren’t real to you, but they’re real to me. These people are the only ones I got in my life and you’re picking at old scabs that have barely healed. So, I’m not going to give you the answer you’re looking for.”

“But-”

“Be seeing you,” Cass interrupts, moving to walk away from him. 

She counts the caps in her hands, not caring if he sees her. He paid the full amount but stiffed her on a tip...of course. 

* * *

A couple of hours and a trip to the Grub n’Gulp later sees Cass with three bottles of whiskey, two bottles of Nuka-Cola, some iguana bits, a couple of boxes of blamco and best of all, a brahmin steak already cooked to perfection. It was a splurge and Cass normally didn’t care much about spending money on food, but Fitz had offered her a good deal. 

When she passes by the alley again on her way back, she sees the kid is still there. He’s moved on to another dumpster, still digging around like his life depends on it. 

Cass realizes, maybe it does. 

“Hey kid,” she calls. “You hungry?”

He looks at her, lips already curling into a snarl but his eyes are filled with fear. The kid wears desperation like a shitty perfume. Cass’s chest aches at the sight of it. The voice in her heart is prodding her along, forcing her into action. 

“I got some food,” she offers, waving the box with the brahmin steak. When the kid hesitates and continues to glare daggers at her, Cass tries another approach: “I don’t want it, really. So you can have it.”

The kid’s traitorous stomach growls, but still he just glares at her. “I don’t need your help!”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, be a stubborn little shit.” 

Cass opens up the nearest dumpster lid and places the brahmin steak and a Nuke on top of a bag before letting the lid slam shut with a clank that resonates throughout the alley. She leaves the kid, acting like she’s stormin’ off. When she rounds the corner, just out of sight, she pauses and waits. Moments later, the dumpster opens and closes again. She hears the telltale hiss of the Nuka being opened. Cass is surprised at the amount of relief that floods through her body. 

* * *

She doesn’t drink as much tonight, not really sure why. It sets her on edge, like there are bugs with red-hot feet crawling up the insides of her veins. Even her teeth feel like they want to wriggle and writhe inside her mouth. Cass is sitting on the floor, back pressed against her door. Her ears are perked, listening for every little sound inside the building. 

At just a little after midnight, she hears the boy downstairs crying again. Suddenly, she’s at war with herself. The bright-eyed, unsinkable voice in her heart urges her to go downstairs and check on the boy. The whiskey-slinging, bastard-shooting part of her just wants to lie low in the shadows and wait. She’s too old to risk her neck, part of her says, but just as swiftly comes the voice asking herself what the hell did she have to live for? She hears a crash from the downstairs hallway and she’s on her feet before she realizes it. Her gun is in her hands and she takes the stairs down two at a time. 

_“I know you’re in there, kid. I can hear your blubberin’.”_

_“Go away!”_

_“You still owe me for that damage you caused, you little bastard. Now open up or I’ll break the fuckin’ door down.”_

Downstairs, Cass sees the man who lives across the hall from the kid standing in front of the kid’s door. He pummels the ancient wood with his fist as he screams obscenities about the kid. 

_"I said, go away!”_ she hears his voice drift in through the wood. Kid’s scared; she can hear it in the way his words waver. 

_“I know your Mama ain’t around, kid. She can’t protect you no more.”_

In a second, she’s got her shotgun down and pointed at the ex-raider. In a lull between his shouts, she cocks it. The sound echoes in the hall, pulling the man’s attention from the kid’s door and on to her. 

“Get away from that door.”

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“You heard me, shithead,” she snarls. “Get away from that door.” Every word in her threat is punctuated with a step towards him.

He backs away, hands raised just up to his shoulders. Cass circles the man, moving to step in front of the kid’s door and block it with her body. She hears the door click open behind her. The man in front of her snarls, “you think you’re some kind of hero? That it? Wake up, you’re just a washed up old drunk who played second fiddle to the real hero.”

“Yeah, ‘least I’m not some ex-raider trash.” She takes a step closer to the man and lowers her voice into a steady, cold tone, “this kid is under my protection and if you so much as look at him in a way I don’t think is right I’m going to make sure your pants fit you a whole lot better.”

She pauses, lowering her gun a little so she can peer towards him. “That means I’m going to shoot your dick off, just so we’re clear.”

The ex-raider shakes his head, muttering curses about Cass under his breath. He turns his head towards the kid’s door and calls through the wood: “just remember, Kid, I can get in there any time I want and when I do, I’m gonna make you pay for every bit of my property.” 

He looks back at Cass, offering her a rude gesture as he walks to his apartment. He slams the door behind him so hard that it makes a small chunk of ancient ceiling crumble and fall down to the floor. Cass waits without moving until she hears the deadbolt click into place. Finally, she turns around and sees the kid peering up at her from behind the door. The pair stare at each other in silence for a moment before the kid finally breaks.

“Did you mean it?”

Cass nods, drumming her fingers absent-mindedly against the shotgun’s receiver. Finally, she inclines her head towards the staircase and it’s the kid’s turn to nod. He disappears back into the apartment for a moment and for a fleeting moment, Cass wonders if the kid’s mom is still inside. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s discovered a grisly scene like that and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He reappears with a blue bag in his arms. Seeing him again banishes the morbid thoughts from Cass’s mind. She heads up the stairs first, the kid trailing dutifully behind. She opens the door for him and as he steps inside, glancing around her apartment Cass feels a sudden rush of insecurity. Her ramshackle home is good enough for her, but in the eyes of another it seems woefully inadequate. 

“It’s, uh, not much.”

“It looks like a real shit hole.” 

Cass snorts, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards on their own. She doesn’t own a lot of furniture: just the old card table, the pristine sideboard, a bed she refuses to sleep in and, a single dining chair. Her walls are bare, save for the places where the layers and layers of ancient paint’s chipped off and the couple of stains she’s managed to acquire from her habit of throwing her booze bottles. The purple one from the _one_ time she was desperate enough to try wine is her favorite. She shrugs and closes the door behind him. “Uh, here,” she begins, gesturing him towards her bed. 

“Where do you sleep?”

Cass lets out a breath that could almost pass for a laugh. “Wherever I fall down. Now get some sleep, we can discuss things in the morning.”

The kid’s clearly too tired to argue. He sets down his bag and climbs into the bed. The voice in her heart, with its bright eyes and scratchy hood tells her to tuck the kid in. But Cass can’t, it’s too much. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or why she’s doing it. The odd warmth in her belly, the peculiar sense of somethin’ like contentment that fills her as she watches the kid fall asleep frightens Cass to her core. 

* * *

She wakes up with the sun; equal parts terrified and relieved to see the kid’s still fast asleep. She reaches for her jacket and digs through the pockets to count her caps. She spent half her pay on the booze and food she bought the day before. Now, with about three hundred caps to her name, she has to find a way to feed the kid too. Her brain moves slowly, with ideas that fizzle and burn out before one finally sticks. She grabs the remaining bottle of Nuke she picked up yesterday and spends another ten minutes rummaging around her boxed belongings until she finds a pen. She scrawls the Courier’s name - her real name - across the label, grabs her gun and heads out to Mick and Ralph’s. 

Cass lies and tells them that its a bottle she’s had stashed away for years, signed by the Courier herself on the evening of the Battle of the Hoover Dam. Of course, they know it’s a crock of shit and that Cass’s extremely basic grasp of written words and barely legible chicken scratch can’t hold a candle to the pristine Followers education the Courier received. She can see the pity in their eyes as she practically begs them to buy it from her. The thought tastes bitter in her mouth, but the pneumatic urgency in her chest screams at her and forces her mind to that kid asleep in her bed. In the end, they agree knowing that some tourist is dumb enough to believe the illegible scrawl and pay a pretty cap for it. They take it, a .38 she pulled off of a corpse last week and the knife from Cass’s boot off her hands for two hundred caps and enough food to last the kid and her for a week. 

When she makes it back to her place, the kid is still passed out. She sets the food down quietly on the card table. Cass steals a glance towards the kid and winds up watching him sleep for several moments. If his mother is still inside that apartment, she needs to know. She rips her eyes away from him and heads back down the stairs to the kid’s place. She tries the knob and as it turns freely, Cass finds herself simultaneously relieved that she didn’t have to try and pick the lock and annoyed that the kid could be so careless. 

As she set foot inside, she shuts her eyes immediately and takes a deep breath in through her nose. She lets out it out with relief; the air smells clean, without the tinge of death and decay. Looking around, Cass can see a varying amount of dust covering the various things around the apartment, as if the kid had tried to keep up with the housekeeping but eventually gave in. Again, she wonders how long the kid has been living by himself. Relieved that for once the worst didn’t come to pass, Cass shuts the apartment door behind her and heads back upstairs. As she crests the final step, her head begins to pound. The kid is still asleep; his chest rises and falls gently and gone is the nasty snarl he showed her a couple of days ago, in its place is the face of a boy at peace. 

Her ligaments snap and her joints creak as she settles her aged body into her single dining chair. She drums her fingers on the card table, each digit leaving behind a ghost of sweat on the surface of the table. The bottle she’s got stashed in a cabinet calls to her. Her eyes drift from the cabinet back to the boy and it just feels _wrong_ for her to open that bottle tonight. She grimaces, looking away from the kid as a sharp throb in her head makes her vision blur for just a moment. The siren song of the bottle brushes her brain, fills her mind with the promise of bliss. 

Her bones feel itchy. 

Cass realizes suddenly that she’s rocking herself in her chair. Her scalp feels tight and her fingers fly to the bun on the back of her head. She lets her hair down, untwisting the salt and pepper bun and letting the wiry locks fall free around her face. She rubs her scalp with her grimy fingers, wincing a little from the pain of having her hair up all day. Her head falls back with a sigh, her eyes close and she tries to focus on the muffled sounds of the world beyond her apartment. 

Just as peace washes over her, Cass feels a something tap her shoulder. She jerks, fully expecting it to be the kid. But as she turns to look behind her, her gaze passes by the bed where the kid is still soundly asleep. Her heart hammers in her chest as she turns completely and sees Veronica standing behind her. Cass’s heart is in her throat and she’s on her feet in a matter of seconds, backing away from Veronica. 

“No, this isn’t…no. Please don’t do this to me,” she whispers. 

Veronica inclines her head, and like an old-world holo her appearance shifts into the visage that haunted Cass’s memories. The moonlight that barely streams in through the boarded up windows catches Veronica’s face and Cass can see the spattering of red dots that cross Veronica’s face. The areas behind her ears and under her chin are swollen, jutting out. Cass can’t see this again, she won’t see this again. 

Cass slams her eyes shut and screams. 

She jars herself alert again in a cold sweat, gasping for air. Her back is pressed against the back wall of the apartment and she looks around wildly for Veronica. She’s alone, just her and the kid who’s somehow still asleep. She didn’t scream, she can feel it in her throat. With a shaky exhale she wipes her brow with the back of her sleeve and heads for the kitchen. She’s got the bottle of whiskey open and down her throat in record time. Groaning, she sits down in the middle of the ruined kitchen and takes another draw on the bottle. With luck, she can drain it and pass out before dawn begins to break.

* * *

The kid nudges her awake with his foot. She groans, her tongue feeling like sand in her mouth. Cass sits up. 

“What time is it?”

“Dunno. Early, I think.” 

Cass yawns and pops her neck. “You, uh, want some food?”

The kid looks sheepish, less like the smart-mouthed little shit that Cass had dealt with just days before. “If you,” he pauses; his eyes meet Cass’s eyes for a moment before darting his gaze away. “If you have any to spare.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course,” she says, finding it difficult to look at the kid’s face. She gestures awkwardly towards the kitchenette and brushes past him.

She opens up an ancient cabinet, wincing a little as the hinge squeals loud enough to bore through her skull. She pulls out the few boxes and cans she bought the day before, setting them on the counter in front of the kid. “I’ve got some Blamco, a Cram, Insta-Mash… any of that strike your fancy?”

“Well, w-what do you want?”

She exhales through her teeth, stealing a glance at the kid over her shoulder. Cass picks up the cram and gives it a little shake. With a shrug she pulls the pull-tab back and dumps the pinkish loaf of meat on to one of the three plates she owns. Cass slices it in half, dumping one half on to another plate. She opens the insta-mash box and pulls out the foil packet. 

“Hey kid, can you hand me a water?”

A bottle of water appears next to her. Cass opens it and pours a little into the foil packet before folding it over and clamping it shut. She pinches the packet, massaging it gently as she mixes the water into the mash. The kid is silent, but she can feel his presence just behind her. She says nothing because she doesn’t know what to say and suspects that it’s the same for him. When the pouch no longer feels hard and crunchy under her fingertips, Cass unfolds the top of the package and squeezes half of the potatoes out on to one of the plates. She turns, handing the plate to the kid. 

“Uh, think I have a spoon in one of the drawers,” she says as she turns to rummage for something resembling cutlery. After a moment she finds a spoon, its cleanliness dubious at best. 

The kid takes his plate and sits at the card table while Cass remains standing. They eat in silence, stealing awkward glances at each other. Finally, the kid breaks:

“What’s your name?”

“Cass.”

“Ma said you were a hero once.”

“Nah just did what was right.”

“Well…what’d’ you do?”

Cass swallows the last of her food and sets down her plate on the cracked and worn Formica countertop. “How old are you, kid?”

“Thirteen.”

She smirks a little as she leans against the purple stain on her wall. “All this was well before your time, kid. Anyone ever tell you about the way the Mojave used to be? Tell you about the NCR and Caesar’s Legion?”

He shakes his head as he finishes his last bite and rises to dutifully place his plate on top of Cass’s. The kid wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares up at Cass with dark, curious eyes. 

“‘Bout twenty-five years ago, the NCR tried to expand into the Mojave and at the same time another faction was trying to do the same. They were called Caesar’s Legion, and they were bad news. They were like locusts, devouring tribe after tribe as they expanded. They enslaved all the women and any men who didn’t or couldn’t join their armies were crucified.”

“What’s that mean?”

Cass swallows, suddenly unsure if she should explain the Legion’s favorite past time to the kid. “It’s, uh, where they tie you to a giant cross and leave you there. Until you…well, you know.” She doesn’t wait for the kid to respond. “And about that time, the man who used to run all of New Vegas had set a plan in motion to control the entire city with an army of securitrons and to do that, he had to have a platinum poker chip delivered. So, he hired a courier out of the Mojave Express, Courier Six.”

“Oh!” the kid said, eyes widening. “I know her!”

“Well, she and I met out at an NCR outpost. She helped me with some things concerning my caravan and we wound up traveling together.”

“Wait, you traveled with the Courier?”

She nods and adjusts her weight against the wall. “Yep, I strapped up with her and went to war for the Hoover Dam.”

“Wow,” the kid breathed.

Cass shrugs and the conversation between them lulls. She regards the kid for a moment. He’s small for his age, malnourished like most kids with parents who are addicts. The kids get enough food to keep them alive; the rest of the caps go to Ma’n’Pa’s drug habits. And, considering the building they’re in, it’s obvious that this kid’s mother didn’t have much to begin with. As her train of thought curves again, Cass realizes suddenly that she has no idea what to call the kid. 

“So what’s your name?”

“Ryo.”

“All right. Where’s your Ma?”

The kid’s expression darkens. Cass can see his jaw tense as he stares at the floor in front of him instead of meeting her gaze. “She’s dead,” he whispers.

“Are you sure? She didn’t just go on a bender somewhere? You see her body?”

Ryo’s dark eyes snap up to Cass’s gaze and the snarling anger envelops the kid’s face. “She’s dead, okay?” he snaps. 

Cass lets it go. She stands up from the wall and sets about cleaning up their plates. It’s best to leave the kid alone, she decides though the voice that invades her is urging her to ask after him. With all of Cass’s insecurities and doubts when it comes to Ryo, in this she’s positive she’s doing the right thing. It’s what she herself would want. She takes a scrap of cloth and wipes the plates off, not wanting to spend the caps on the water to rinse them. Money’s too tight for such frivolities. She doesn’t know how long its been, but behind her she can hear the kid rise to his feet. For once, Cass’s intuition is right. The loose chunks of floor crunch underneath his feet as he walks around her shitty apartment. 

“Wow, a powerfist,” she hears him whisper. 

In a flash, Cass rounds on him. His fingertips are reaching for the precious relic. Cass’s bum heart is slamming against her ribs. “Don’t touch that!”

Ryo recoils as if he’s been burned, even going so far as to clutch his hand to his chest. “S-sorry,” he mumbles, not meeting her eyes.

Seeing the kid’s expression, Cass’s anger melts away from her with shame replacing it in double measures. “No, I’m-I’m sorry. It’s just- it belongs to someone very important to me.”

“Who?”

“My wife, Veronica.”

The kid tilts his head, eyes narrowed at her as if he’s wondering how someone could ever put up with her long enough to marry. Frankly, Cass has wondered the same thing for the past twenty-five years. 

“Where is she?”

Cass sighs. “She died, kid.”

“Oh.” He looks between the powerfist and Cass a couple of times before adding: “in the battle?”

The darker parts of Cass’s mind don’t want to have this conversation. She can feel it pulling at her, making her chest ache with the sensation of losing Veronica all over again. The kid doesn’t know he’s ripping her heart out. “Nah, years later. She died about twelve years ago, a wasting sickness. Our doctor friend called it ‘acute lympho-something leukemia’.” 

“What’s that mean?”

“I, uh, don’t rightly know. She was just…real, real sick.”

“Could they give her medicine?”

Cass purses her lips. Memories come and take up residence at the front of her mind. She can remember the conversations with Arcade as vividly as if ghosts were acting out the scene right in front of her. She can picture the fatigue that lined Arcade’s eyes as he worked, searched, and consulted every available source looking for a cure. More so, she can perfectly remember the downward turn of his mouth as he pressed the ancient medical tome in her hands and tried to explain what was happening. They’d needed medicine, medicine that couldn’t be made anymore since the plant that used to make it hadn’t existed in two hundred years. 

The ghosts fade and Cass is left with the sensation of silence filling the space between them, with the kid watching Cass with his near-black eyes that unnerve her just a little. She looks away from him, unable look at those eyes any longer. 

“My Ma says my Pa died before I was born. But, I think she just didn’t know what else to tell me.”

With the kid’s subject change, it feels as if someone had come along and just popped the bubble of memories and pain that Cass had conjured around herself. She can swear that even the world seems just a touch brighter. “You have other family?”

“Nope. It’s always just been me and my Ma. Now, I guess….” He trails off. Ryo wipes his eyes with the backs of his fingers quickly as he stares at the floor in front of him. “I guess it’s just me.”

In this moment, Cass knows exactly what Ronnie would do, sweet girl that she is- was: she’d snake her arm around the boy’s shoulders, give him a warm squeeze and tell him that he wasn’t alone, he had her now. But, Cass ain’t Ronnie. So, she clears her throat awkwardly and nods. She does, after all, know the feeling of being alone. ‘Grandma’ Lily left their group first; though the nightkin was in tip-top physical condition, they’d wanted Lily to live out her years in peace. They returned Rex to the King, as was right to do. Raul left one day without fuss, only leaving a note behind for the Courier. Every so often a rumor would trickle in about a ghoul vigilante gunslinger righting some wrong out in the wastes. Courier Simone, Boone and Arcade were still around when Veronica died. It had made the bearing of it a sliver easier, knowing that at least Ronnie had been surrounded by people who loved her when she passed. Cass didn’t realize it until later, but Veronica’s death had set forth a shift in their dynamic, a rift that nothing could mend. It wasn’t that they disliked each other, quite the opposite; it was that losing Ronnie made them all much, much more aware of the fleeting nature of life. 

Arcade left first. He said goodbye to the Mojave with promises that he’d write as often as he could manage - which they all knew was not very often - and that he’d come back to visit. He left, he said, for research. He wanted to look into developing alternate cures for diseases and conditions that had been cured before the bombs. Cass and everyone knew - though they weren’t heartless enough to say it out loud - that Arcade felt a terrible weight on his shoulders for not being able to help Veronica. Cass wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. The words had formed in Cass’s mind but she could never bring herself to say them. About a year ago she’d gotten a letter, in it was a clipping of an article from a settlement’s newspaper detailing how a group of doctors, including one Doctor Arcade Gannon had saved a nine-year-old girl’s life from the same sickness that had claimed Veronica. The letter was unsigned, but Cass could recognize the tiny, constipated handwriting on the envelope anywhere.

Two years after Arcade left, Cass had never been closer to Simone and Boone. The three of them leaned on each other through everything, but one day the two of them had had enough of the Mojave. Cass could still remember the looks that Simone and Boone had exchanged before they told her that they wanted to leave and head north. They asked, no, _begged_ for her to come with them. 

She told them no.

She loved them - loves them - but she couldn’t leave the memories of Veronica behind. Three weeks later, Boone, the Courier and ED-E said their goodbyes and Cass hadn’t seen them since.

Of course, she doesn’t tell Ryo any of this. She can’t. Some of the words take shape in her mouth and sit on her tongue, but when it comes time to make them real Cass finds them empty, like ash that simply blows away. The rest are too raw, ripped and ragged from the Mojave sands. The smallest part of her can’t help but wonder if the situation was reversed, would Veronica have as much trouble speaking about her?

* * *

In the days that follow, Ryo and Cass fall into a routine. Every morning Ryo nudges Cass awake from wherever she’d passed out the night before, Cass makes breakfast and the two head out onto the streets of Freeside. Before, Cass always relied on word of mouth for more business. Someone would drop a word that she was around and available for hire and eventually, a paying customer would show up. Ryo, however, had a different idea. He’d walk along the streets or stand at the entrance to Freeside and play barker for her. When a customer found their way to Cass, Ryo would stay behind. After two days of their routine, Cass returned from escorting a tourist through Freeside to find that Ryo had constructed a little stand with Cass’s name emblazoned on top and a list of her prices with what services she was willing to provide. 

Cass’s hands had clenched and unclenched as she fought the urge give his shoulder a squeeze.

At night they walk to the Grub n’Gulp and buy dinner and the next day’s breakfast. At first, Cass just bought a few boxes of the same stuff she always bought - Insta-Mash and Blamco - but on the third trip, she notices the way Ryo would linger by the fresh foods. Cass usually never bothered, food only had two purposes for her: sustaining life and soaking up the extra alcohol in her system. She pressed a small stack of caps into the boy’s hand and told him to buy whatever he wanted.

At first, Ryo had protested but once Cass had shrugged and refused to take the caps back, he shyly looked around the market. Slowly, he grew more confident as he picked out a small bag of roasted buffalo gourd seeds and tasted the bighorner cheese. Cass had stood back and watched with a small smile on her face; seeing the kid brighten up filled her bum heart with warmth, the constant ache eased just a bit. In the end, the kid bought a sack of the roasted seeds, a slab of the bighorner cheese, some fresh bread, broc flower honey and salted nightstalker jerky. That night, Cass had sliced up two slices of the bread and the kid had drizzled each piece with the honey; together with a chunk of the cheese and some of the seeds, they’d eaten better than Cass had in years. For the first time since they’d met, Cass heard the kid laugh. 

Once the kid would go to bed, however, Cass’d be left alone with the ache in her chest renewed. Some nights she tried to resist the allure of drink, but Veronica’s ghost and the prickling fever across her skin drove her to pick up the bottle. So, it became part of their routine that Cass’d drink until she passed out and every morning Ryo’d kick her awake for them to begin it all again.

Conversation between them had mostly halted beyond what was necessary to get through the day: ‘do you want the last fancy lad?’ and ‘be safe’. It’s an unspoken rule that Cass doesn’t ask about Ryo’s mother and Ryo doesn’t ask about Veronica. But, Cass knows that his mother is at the forefront of his thoughts because the kid talks in his sleep. Even in her progressively drunken haze, Cass heard him call for his mother loud and clear. Some nights the word 'razor’ would tumble from the kid’s mouth, usually followed by him protesting something. Still, in the mornings Ryo doesn’t mention anything and Cass doesn’t press. 

* * *

One morning, Cass wakes up first. 

She’d been dreaming, a nightmare that forced her awake with her defective heart slamming a million miles a minute against her ribs. She wipes her slick brow, shivering from the cold sweat that leaves her shirt stuck to her skin. For a moment she’s jarred so violently that she can’t quite remember where the bounds of the dream end and reality begin. She’s fearful, suddenly afraid that the last week had all been part of her dreams, that here is no Ryo; he’s just a figment of her lonely mind. She looks around wildly for him, and surprises herself with the amount of relief she feels at seeing his sleeping form.

She rises as quietly as she can, given the loud snaps and cracks of her joints and the way she can’t help but moan a little as her head pounds from her ritualistic drinking the night before. She steps over to Ryo and studies the way his chest rises and falls with each deep breath. He looks peaceful in a way that only the truly young and innocent can look and it makes Cass’s belly twist up at the realization that Ryo never looks this at ease when he’s awake. She reaches across the gap between them, her fingers just barely brushing against the black flop of a cowlick that hangs in his forehead. Cass catches herself and stops, letting her hand drop to her side. She shoves the offending hand into the pocket of her jeans and moves away from the bed. 

Cass chaws on a piece of nightstalker jerky as she retrieves her gun from its place by the door. As she hefts it over her shoulder, she looks back at the kid. An odd warmth stirs in her belly, making the rest of her feel like smiling. It feels odd, like a sensation that doesn’t quite belong to her body; like blowing dust off an old pre-war treasure only to find it cracked and broken underneath. She shakes herself. Kid deserves better, deserves more than a broken-down, old has-been. Her eyes trail back to the powerfist, the old credenza that had once made the girl she loved squeal with joy and her chest aches so strong she feels like doubling over. Cass gives the kid one last look before she quietly steps out of the apartment and locks the door behind her. 

* * *

They’re down to about a hundred caps. Before Ryo, a hundred caps had seemed like plenty for her to get by on. Whiskey ran around thirty caps a bottle, which left her with about ten to buy a box of Blamco. But now, a box of Blamco ain’t enough for the boy and Cass doesn’t even take into account that she could simply buy less alcohol. 

There’s a man waiting for her at her stand. He’s older than most of the folks who hire her, with salt and pepper hair and a thick, pink scar that runs down the edge of his cheek. He’s got an old world swagger to him, Cass notices immediately and two pistols - little prissy .38’s - holstered to his hips. You can tell a lot about someone by the gun they sling, Cass knows. In her case she favors the caravan shotgun because the wide spread of shot keeps her hitting her targets even when her hands are shaking from. It’s an intimidating gun; perfect for a woman who prefers to solve dilemmas with action instead of words. Most assholes she comes across - save for Fiends, who are too out of their minds with chems to care about pain and mutilation - would rather run away than take a shotgun blast; any two-cap thug knows that being shot with a spray means more holes to patch up, assuming they even survive. The man in front of her, however, carrying those two little pistols so openly on his hips tells Cass that he’s the flashy sort, the kind of man who’ll enter a gunfight for glory and braggin’ rights and not because he had no other choice. Her eyes drift across the gleaming metal and polished handles and if Cass didn’t know better, she’d swore they’d just come off an assembly line. He’s a cocky bastard, but clearly capable and Cass can’t help but wonder why he’d want her gun at his side.

“Help you?” she asks as she reaches the stand. 

He flashes her a smile, like something out of an old-world conman movie. He wants something from her and evidently, doesn’t know enough about Cass to know that she’s far too ornery to be charmed by anyone. She stares back at him, impassive, and waits for him to answer her question. 

Still smiling, the old goat dips his head towards her in greeting. “Hello there, pretty lady. You wouldn’t happen to be the famous Rose of Sharon Cassidy, now would you?”

Cass snorts; twenty years ago she would have decked him for his cheek. Instead, she sticks her thumb towards the sign. “I’m Cass. You lookin’ to hire me?”

His smile morphs from a lecherous sneer to a wolfish grin. His eyebrows arch as he runs thick, stubby fingers through his greasy mane. He chuckles to himself, rising from his position of leaning against her stand. “Well shucks ma’am, I have to admit I’m more than a li’l star struck right here. I was just a boy when the Courier kicked the NCR out of the Mojave, but I remember the fights over the water here in Freeside. Them was tough times.”

Cass had learned to spot a snake in the grass years ago, a trick that came in handy during her caravanning years. Whether it was nefarious types trying to beg on as guards or mountebanks masquerading as honest merchants, having a six sense about who to trust and who to level a gun at saved Cass’s hide on more than one occasion. She’s never been a people person, never the sort who could sit and be friendly with others for a stretch at a time. That had been Veronica’s forte. The man in front of her is a wolf, or a snake; she’s not sure which. Either way, her fingers itch to draw her shotgun and send the man scrambling back to whatever hole he crawled out of. But the thought of the boy asleep back at her apartment and the promise of the caps in the man’s pocket stay her hand. 

“With all due respect, d’you have a job for me or not?”

He freezes midway through his little spiel about hiding in fear from the Legion’s scouting parties, arms up as if in mid-gesture and all. His demeanor shifts, going from silken smooth machismo to sinister glee as he drops his arms to stand akimbo in front of her. “Oh I’m sorry to waste your time today, Ma’am but I just wanted to get a look at you,” he sneers as he shifts his gaze up and down her body. “And see if the one and only _Rose of Sharon Cassidy_ , was still one you didn’t want to go to heels with.”

Cass may be old, but she can still skin her gun in a flash. She has her shotgun down from her shoulder and leveled at the man in front of her before he’s finished chuckling at himself. “You tell me.”

“Shucks, ma’am, I meant no disrespect of _course_. I’ll be seein’ya real soon.” He winks at her, before gripping the brim of his hat between two fingers and tilting it towards her. “Ma’am.”

She keeps her shotgun drawn, but loosens her grip as she watches the man mosey away from her, shit-eating grin firmly plastered across his features.

“Shithead,” Cass mutters, shaking her head a little as she watches his retreating form. 

A paying client comes along not long after, but Cass finds her mind still muddled with the morning’s events. The snake’s threat sticks out in her mind; she replays the confrontation in her head over and over again. He promised that they’d meet again and Cass is inclined to believe him. When they do meet again, she knows that only one of them will walk away from the encounter. 

* * *

Cass returns to her apartment just as the sun begins its descent in the sky. Her pockets are full of jangling caps, thanks to a job asking her to clear out some geckos from one of the old NCR sharecropping farms. The job turned exciting when a band of raiders, calling themselves the Furies had tried to attack. The Furies were just another crew of human trash to come along after the death of whatever raider gang came before them. They’re led by an ex-Fiend, one of Motor-Runner’s right hand men, Scourge. 

She was filled with an odd sense of something, like a kind of excitement as she crouched behind a hay bale to avoid enemy gunfire. The cracks and pops of guns firing filled the air as the wind carried the scent of spent gunpowder and blood and _fire_ through the air. It was probably wrong that the sensation of fighting again left Cass feeling more alive than she’d felt in years. Hell, she knew it was wrong. People could’ve been killed; Cass herself could’ve been killed, though that particular notion didn’t fill her with the same amount of dread it had years ago. 

Outside the main door, Cass pauses to count the pieces of jingling metal. The other farmers had been so thankful that she’d stayed; they’d all thrown in some extra caps for their gratitude. It wasn’t much, but farming wasn’t exactly the most lucrative of professions and Cass was thankful all the same. With it all thrown together, the day’s events brought their wealth up to six hundred caps. A fleeting thought rockets through her mind, like a fly escaping a swatter: _should I bring home something for Ryo?_ She shoves the caps back in her pocket and pushes the brim of her hat back on her head in thought. Do kids his age still play with things? For that matter, had Ryo ever played in his life? It’s hard to line Ryo up with both the images of his snarling and stubborn-as-a-brahmin little spitfire personality and that of an actual child. 

Cass herself had never had toys growin’ up. Her Tribal Mama had taught her the basics of gettin’ on in the world, rather than letting her play. While kids her age grew playing Rangers and Raiders inside the safety of the NCR’s towns, Cass had learned how to skin gecko and find water in the desert. Her peers explored their city streets while she and her Mama roamed the dusty waste for meager scrap and abandoned valuables to trade. She became an adult the day she survive on her own and for the whole of her life, she’d never given any thought on what a different childhood might have been like…until now. And, as Ryo was really the only child she’d ever interacted with, she can’t really help but wonder the sort of childhood he might have had before his Ma vanished. His mother had been a Jet addict from the time that they’d moved into the building, Cass knows that much and that had been about eight years prior. She hadn’t paid much attention to the kid at that time, he and his mother had both just been more blurry figures in Cass’s peripheral vision. 

She shakes her head, jiggles her legs and shoves the caps back into her pockets. It’d be easier to just _ask_ Ryo, rather than guess, she knows. Her knees crack as she ascends the stairs, but her mind drifts to the encounter with the man earlier in the day. She pours through the event, her mind replaying each moment over and over again. Truthfully, she can’t quite decide if she should be worried or not. There’s been years of random encounters with strangers under her belt and some ended good, some ended bad but, if she’s honest with herself, Cass’s gut tells her that there’s more to the situation than she realizes. 

_“That old lady ain’t comin’ back for you, kid,”_ a sinister voice drifts down the stairs as Cass enters the building. _“She’s gone; just like yer Ma.”_

The mighty bang of a fist against the ancient wood of Cass’s door thuds in her chest. Cass breaks off in a run, but her heart begins to protest before she’s even reached the first landing. She recognizes the voice, its the same ex-raider asshole who’d been harassing Ryo the first night. Another boom and Cass swears she can hear the splintering wood.

His voice lowers, almost cooing at the kid; _“I’m going to make you pay for the damage you did, you hear me? And I promise, for all the trouble you’ve caused me that it ain’t gonna be quick.”_

She thinks she hears Ryo’s response as she reaches the second landing, her chest heaving from her trying to run. Her body is screaming, but Cass’s mind is clear: she has to get up there. Cass’s boots thud against the worn flooring as she finally reaches the top of the building. She’s gasping, her bum heart aching and stinging her so hard she can hardly breathe. But she lowers her gun and jabs the raider with the end of the barrel. As he turns, she shifts her grip on the gun and whips the heavy wooden stock against the side of his face. The sickening crack of his jaw breaking echoes off of the dilapidated plaster and the empty hallway fills with the man’s cries of surprise and pain. 

“Get away from him,” she says, her voice thin from lack of air, but strong enough to slide through her gritted teeth. 

The man’s eyes are glassy, but filled with fiery hate as he regards her. “You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life,” he hisses through his teeth. 

She raises her shotgun again, but the man rises to his feet and flees down the stairs. Once it’s clear the man isn’t coming back, she shoulders her weapon and shakes her head. The first time that scumbag had come calling had been to scare the kid, she’d thought. At the time, Cass had been able to dismiss it from her mind as the piece of trash trying to menace a helpless kid. But this time? There’s clearly more goin’ on than she realized and now, she needs answers. 

As the door groans open, she hears a sharp gasp and the sound of her name echoing off the plaster walls:

“Cass!”

Something solid and heavy collides with her midsection and she looks down to see Ryo has thrown his arms around her waist and is hugging her with all the strength his small body can exert. “Uh, kid?” Cass asks dumbly, too shocked to really form a properly coherent thought. 

“I thought- I thought you left,” she hears him murmur against threadbare flannel of her shirt. 

Her hands are on his shoulders and she pushes him off of her just enough to get a view of his face. He looks up at her, dark eyes glassy and oddly fearful. Her face screws up in an unvoiced question. 

Ryo sniffles; it’s such a small, delicate sound that Cass can hardly believe she even heard it. “I woke up…and you were gone.” He sniffles again and it sends a knife of pain through Cass’s already aching chest to see the way his eyes begin to water.

She sighs, unfastening her holster. “You going to tell me what all that shit was about?”

The kid stiffens underneath her hardened gaze, his shoulders tense in her hands but just before he can look away from her and shutdown, Cass gives him a sharp squeeze. She doesn’t know if it’s reassuring or if it just startles him, but it works. Ryo looks up at her, eyes clear and focused on her. 

Finally, he speaks: “You always suggested that my Ma disappeared, or ran off and I know you didn’t want to make me sad that she could be dead but… I know she’s dead. I saw her.”

“Tell me.”

“I woke up and she was gone. I- I got scared and stayed here until I got hungry.” The kid looks away, but stops himself. Ryo’s jaw tightens and he raises his eyes to stare straight into hers as he continues, “I went to Razor’s place, thinkin’ that she’d be there.”

“Razor?”

“Her dealer, that asshole who was just here. He has a den in Freeside where he sells his drugs. Ma used to go there and get her fix. She used to stay there until the worst of it passed, and then come home. But, lately she’d been stayin’ there longer and longer.” The kid pauses, whether for breath or to reflect, Cass doesn’t know. She thinks she should smile encouragingly, like Ronnie’d do but she can’t quite get her mouth to move properly. Instead, the moment passes by with Cass’s hard eyes still staring down into the kid.

“I found her there,” he whispers. “I-I thought she’d just passed out at first, but… she was d-dead.”

Cass makes a noise in her throat, the closest she can come to speaking. She knows the feeling, too well, and yet she has no words of comfort. In her mind, there aren’t any words or expressions that can heal that pain. The only balm she’d ever found effective for her grief was time.

“Razor came in, saw me trying to wake her up and he…he _laughed_.” The kid’s voice falters and finally he rips his gaze away from Cass. After a moment of staring at his feet, his shoulders stiffen again and his eyes snap back up to hers. His face is hard and older than any right it has to be; the kid’s aged before his time, his childhood stolen by the dangers of adulthood in the Mojave. 

“I’m sorry, kid,” Cass murmurs. 

“The day he tried to break into my apartment, I paid him a visit.”

“What?”

“I went down to his place in Freeside and I snuck in to the back,” he runs a small hand through his black hair. “No one pays much attention to a kid, y’know. Anyway, he has a guy who cooks on site for him. The guy stepped out for a smoke, so I went in and I….”

“Tell me.”

Ryo sighs. “I smashed his lab. I found a piece of a-a metal bar and I just started hitting things. I don’t think I did a lot of damage, but…enough that now he’s after me.”

“So the night that I chased him away from your door,” Cass begins, “he was trying to break in and hurt you?”

“Yeah.”

Cass exhales heavily, her hand flies up to her face. “Jesus, kid. Why didn’t you tell me you had men after you? Shit.”

“I-I don’t know. I guess I was afraid you'd not let me stay with you.... I’m sorry.”

She paces away from the kid, not addressing his concern. In her mind, its ridiculous, of course she'd still have taken him in. “They haven’t come after you in days. Why?”

“You. They’re afraid of you.”

Cass curses and pinches the bridge of her nose. Suddenly, like a spark igniting kindling, a memory flashes through her mind. She kneels down to eye-level with the kid, “does Razor have a guy working for him who carries twin pistols? He’s a real cocky asshole.”

She watches his little face twist up as he thinks. After a second he’s nodding, “Yeah, Ma hated him. Razor only sends him out when he needs to deal with someone.”

It had already been clear that the cocky man had been lookin’ at her for some nefarious purpose, but at the time she’d had no idea that it had been in order to see how much of a threat she was in regards to protecting the kid. She’d failed that test, she knew, which was probably why Razor had felt confident enough to try and break down her door. Cass rises from her position and steps away from Ryo, mind entirely focused. The kid isn’t safe, not as long as Razor’s breathing and Cass knows it’s only a matter of time before they make a move on her and the kid. The first one might fail, but these are the kind of people who just get madder and try harder. Eventually, she’s going to die and whether it’s from Razor or just life in general, the kid’ll be an easy target once she’s gone. 

In her mind, there’s only one thing to do. 

“Pack up your stuff,” she says at last. “We’re getting out of here.”

* * *

The kid won’t stop staring at Veronica’s powerfist - still resting in its place of honor - as they leave. He’s smart, Cass knows and because of that, she’s sure that he’s already half-figured out that she’d never just leave her the relic behind. Still, he doesn’t argue as Cass ushers him down the street and through the gate of the Old Mormon Fort. Even in twenty-five years the place hasn’t changed…much. The yard is still littered with tents and people seeking help, but there are less junkies and Julie Farkas still runs a tight ship. 

“Hey, Julie!” Cass calls as they walk through the gate. 

An older woman with a shaved head perks up and waves at them before heading their way. “Cass, long time,” she says as she shakes Cass’s hand. Her gaze drifts down to Ryo, whose face remains carefully neutral as he looks up at Julie. “Who’s your friend?”

“Ryo, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine: Julie. She’s a Followers doctor, been keeping this place running for thirty years.”

Julie grins and holds out her hand to the kid. “Hey, Ryo.”

Instead of shaking hands, Ryo turns to look back up at Cass. “Why are we here?”

Cass exhales shakily as she shifts her weight to her other foot. “I, uh, thought you could stay here for a while. Until things settle down.”

“You’re abandoning me,” he murmurs, his voice soft as anything. 

“Julie, can you give us a minute?” The doctor nods at her and quietly slips away as Cass kneels down to look Ryo in the eye. She takes the boy by the shoulders again. “I’m not…I’m not abandoning you, not really. But, I’m not gonna be around much longer.”

“Why?” the kid whispers.

Cass can see the tears forming in his dark eyes and the sight of it makes her chest ache in a way she’s not felt since Ronnie died. “You’re not safe and you’re not going to be safe as long as Razor and those men are still breathing. I aim to fix that.”

“But, we can just run away.”

“You can, kid, but I can’t,” she sighs. “Look, my life ended when Veronica died. I’ve just been existing since, and this way…I can do one last good thing before I die.”

“Cass, no!” he cries. “Promise you won’t leave me.”

She sighs. “I can’t make that promise, Ryo.”

“ _Why_?”

The word dangles in the air between them, and Cass finds her mouth begins to move again on its own: “I’m going to go and I’m going to make you safe,” she says, her voice thick as she squeezes his bony shoulders. Her heart aches as she watches a tear roll down his cheek and she doesn’t know how to fix it, how to fix him and stop him from crying. “And, I’m not comin’ back,” she tells him, her voice quivering in her throat. 

“Why?” he whispers, “Why can’t you just come back? Don’t you like me?”

“This isn’t the kind of battle you walk away from, kid. This is my last ride.”

“You don’t know that!” he argues, the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He lets out a sob; it creaks in his throat as he tries to stifle it. 

“Listen to me, you’re going to stay here until morning. That Caravan by the gate is heading out to the Boneyard at first light.” She reaches into the pocket of her jacket and hands him a small leather pouch. It jangles together with the promise of caps. “Here’s six-hundred caps. You give this to the head of the caravan resting by the gate and tell ‘em that you want safe passage. They’re gonna give you shit about being a kid, that’s why you give them four-hundred of those six, you got that? And don’t let them know you’ve still got two hundred, because they’ll try to take it from you. When you get to NCR territory, you find the Followers and you let them take you in. Okay? The Followers are good people. They’re going to care for you, feed you, clothe you and give you an education. You keep that two hundred safe and use it when you grow up. Get yourself a nice place, live a good life. Do this for me, okay?”

“I want to stay with you!” he pleads, reaching for her. 

It breaks Cass’s heart to pull away from the kid, leaving his hands to dangle in mid air before they flop back to his sides. She blinks and is surprised to discover her cheeks are wet. Cass clears her throat and stands to her full height as she forces herself to harden her heart. It’s the hardest thing she’s had to do since she buried Veronica, but Cass still turns her back on Ryo and walks away. She can hear him yelling her name, his voice thick with tears, even after she passes through the fort’s gate. She halfway expects to feel his little hands gripping her clothes, pulling her back, but the kid obeys and stays behind. 

She returns to her apartment, unnervingly calm. Even her chest has stopped its constant ache. For the first time in years, her hands are steady as she prepares herself. Her shoulder harness goes on, followed by her ancient shotgun. She straps her knife to her left thigh and the gun that shot the Courier, Maria, to her right hip. She’d discovered the gun inside the Lucky 38’s suite the day after Simone and Boone had left and never thought she’d ever use it, until now. In the pocket of her jacket she stuffs extra shells and bullets. Finally, she grabs a hip flask and fills it with whiskey before tucking it place at the small of her back. She lifts the half-empty bottle to her lips and takes a big swig, wincing just a little from the burn. The warmth spreads through her body pleasantly, almost euphorically. 

Cass finds herself standing in front of Veronica’s powerfist, with the bottle still in her hand. With her free fingers, she glides her touch across the smooth surface of the weapon and smiles. “I’m coming, Ronnie. I’ll be there soon.” She upends the bottle and takes another big swig before chucking it against opposite wall of the apartment. Cass laughs. “All right. One last time, for the kid.”

* * *

Her boot makes short work of Razor’s apartment door. It’s empty of Razor, as she expects. But, in his stead she finds a young woman with a shiner over her right cheek with an expression painting her face that says she’s just too tired to scream. The sallow color of her bony cheek - the one sans wound - mixing with the dark circles under her eyes, makes her entire face look like a giant bruise. She regards Cass in what the woman could only suspect was ‘resigned wariness’. 

“Where’s Razor?” Cass asks. 

The woman takes a moment to answer as her eyes slide across Cass’s body. Her gaze stops on each weapon, as if taking a lazy inventory. Finally, she answers: “you gonna kill him?”

“Yes, Ma’am. That a problem?”

This time, there’s no hesitation: “his Jet den is in that old motel, the El Ray, across from what used to be an NCR Base.”

Cass smiles, but there’s no heart behind it; at most, it’s a baring of teeth. “I know it well.” 

Unsure of the social etiquette after you kick in someone’s door, Cass hesitates for a fraction of a second before mumbling an apology about the destruction. The woman shrugs as if such things happened regularly and promptly returns to whatever it was that had occupied her time before Cass’s interruption. Realizing that the conversation was officially over, Cass picks up the door from where it broke off its hinges and landed. She gingerly places it _near_ it’s frame and nods to the woman before leaving. 

It’d been years since she’d been out to McCarran, and even longer since she’d stepped out through its gates into that part of what had been Fiend territory. She could remember well, though, that the El Ray Motel had been a junkie haunt even twenty-five years ago. 

Getting out there back in the day was easy. With the Courier’s rep in the NCR being what it was, they were allowed to ride that monorail out to the base and save their feet a few hours of walking. But, once the Courier kicked the NCR out of the Mojave there was no one left to maintain the transport and it soon fell into disrepair. Nowadays, people talked about the monorail as if it was a myth, much in the same way they talked about the world that was. Cass, for her part, doesn’t mind the walking. It gives her a chance to think and formulate a plan. Storming a motel wasn’t an easy feat. Each room provided the occupant a chance to hunker down and posed the risk that the invader could walk into a death trap. There was no doubt in Cass’s mind that she wasn’t going to walk away from this, but she needed to stay alive long enough to kill Razor and the Cocky Asshole at the minimum. Then, Ryo could breathe easy on his way to New California.

Then, he’d be safe. 

* * *

When she gets near the El Ray, Cass flips the collar of her jacket up and pulls her hat down over her eyes. She keeps her chin tucked to her chest and changes her stride to something more fitting for a junkie. When the El Ray looms ahead of her, she sees that Razor’s erected a large junk fence to block off the main courtyard. Out front is a guard, a man who looks more Fiend than typical raider. His hands - which look to be bigger than Cass’s face - grip a large rifle that he raises a little when he sees Cass coming. The guard in question only grows larger with each step she takes and when she’s finally in range to get a good look at him, she realizes that he may just be the biggest man she’s ever seen. His hands alone are meaty and huge and look as if they barely fit inside the trigger guard. A sudden thought flits through her mind: that the man may just use the rifle as a makeshift club. If she were the kind of person to break into nervous giggles, she knew she’d be in stitches right about now. 

But, she’s not. She’s calmer than she’s ever been; even the constant tremor of her hands has subsided. Her mind is clear and her intent righteous. 

“What d’ya want?”

“I need some Jet.”

“Never seen you around here before,” he grunts, looking Cass up and down. 

“I’m new in town. Just arrived yesterday,” she explains. “Please, man. I’m hurting.”

“All right, through the gate but, don’t be tryin’ anythin’ funny. You can buy on the top floor, first room.”

She dips her head in thanks as the man unlocks the gate to let her through. She keeps her chin tucked, doing whatever she can to obscure her face. She doesn’t know where Razor or Cocky Asshole is, and it’d be suicide for her cover to be blown so quickly. Still, she sneaks a quick glance around the courtyard and finds it oddly empty save for a couple of rusted out cars and some barrels. She makes a mental note of the placement of things that could provide cover in a firefight. She’d hate to get pinned down out here, but she’s walked this road long enough to know to be prepared for such an outcome. Glancing over her shoulder, she realizes that the guard has effectively stopped paying attention to her. She shakes her head; Razor, for all his talk, hired a bunch of amateurs to guard his livelihood. The giant’s back is turned and with another quick glance around her, Cass draws her knife. 

His giant frame crumples to the ground in a heap, the last gurgling noise he made still rings in her ears. She shrugs it off, trying not to focus on the flecks of blood drying to tightness on her fingers. His body is too heavy to move, she realizes as she tries and fails to drag him by his legs. All she can do now is hope that no one comes along before her business is concluded. 

With a shrug, she shuts the gate behind her and glides up the dingy concrete stairs. Her heart begins to beat steadily in her chest as she grips the ancient door handle and it skips once, twice as she pushes the door open and sees a man standing inside the dim room. He looks up at her, his eyes strained with exhaustion, or addiction she’s not sure which. 

“You lookin’ for a puff?” he asks tiredly, as if its a line he’s had to repeat more times than his own name. Probably has, Cass thinks. 

“Yeah, I’m hurting real bad.”

“It’s a seventy-five an inhaler.”

“Sure,” Cass replies as she makes a show of searching her pockets for caps. “Say,” she says after a second of searching. “I heard this place was run by an ex-raider by the name of Razor.”

She pulls her hand out of her pocket like she’s got the caps in her hand. The man falls for the ruse and turns his back to her to retrieve an inhaler from a shelf sitting behind him. “I don’t know. He’s in one of the rooms. Why’d you want to know?”

A soft exhale - all frustration - escapes her lips; of course, she’s going to have to go room to room to find Razor. Cass silently steps up behind the man. She’s got the knife in her hand again, her knuckles turning white from the grip on the handle. “No reason,” she says just as she plunges the knife into his body. The man starts to scream, so Cass covers his mouth with her hand as she lets him fall to the floor. She wipes her knife on his clothes and sets it back in its holster. His body is light enough for her to drag it behind some boxes and out of sight, though there’s not much of a point. She ducks out of the room, closing the door behind her. As she steps out into the breezeway, the sound of a door closing at the opposite end of the building startles her. Her eyes snap up in its direction and she sees Razor just as he notices her. Their eyes lock and for an instance, all time freezes. They stand there, staring at each other until the world starts to turn again, slowed down to a crawl as the adrenaline hits her bloodstream. A glimmer of recognition passes over his face just as Cass’s hand reaches to pull her shotgun down from her shoulder. He shouts an alarm just as the gun settles in her hand and her fingers slip through the trigger guard. She squeezes just as he leaps back into his room. The gun fires, a flash of light and righteous thunder but the hallway is empty. She exhales shakily, her limbs trembling. Before she has a chance to think and revise, she hears shouts from other men in the complex. 

Following a long string of expletives, Cass runs back into the room and slams the door shut. Her back rests against it for just a moment, her heart thudding so hard in her chest it makes her vision swim. She needs something heavy to barricade the door and something else to crouch behind for when they manage to break it down. The room is absolutely covered with useless shit: empty burlap bags of fertilizer, empty inhaler canisters and random bits of old newspapers and pre-war money. Underneath the trash, however, she finds an old armchair and pushes it up against the doorknob. It ain’t much, but it’ll have to do. She hears heavy footsteps against the old concrete outside the door. They’re close. She’s got no choice but to use every bit of her strength and upend the wooden table the lab equipment is sitting on. The glass bottles and heavy metal pieces make a cacophonous crash as they hit the floor, leaving little doubt of her position. She dives behind the table, sets her hat back on her head so she can see better and grips her shotgun in white knuckled hands. 

The first blow to the door makes her jump, even though she knows to expect it. From the voices, she thinks she hears three men on the other side. She exhales and sets the barrel of her gun on the edge of the table, her index finger itchy to over the trigger and as the second blow comes, it takes all her resolve to not squeeze. She hears the door splintering on the third strike. The fourth, and the light of the evening sun starts to stream through, bathing the room in an unearthly tone. She thinks her palms are sweating, she knows his forehead is dripping as her stomach feels bottomless and full of little bugs on crawly legs. It won’t be Razor that breaks down the door; he’s not the type. Cass has to cut through the men that are on the other side of the door; she cannot fail now.

The fifth attack is true and the door is free. The chair setting in front slows them down; when one of raiders shows himself as he tries to move it out of the way, instinct takes over and her shotgun roars with fire. The man screams as he, the chair, the wall and the remains of the door are sprayed with scattershot. He falls back and the other men shout to get down. Cass thumbs the hinge release and flips the gun open. She flings the spent shell behind her and pushes a new one in before snapping the shotgun closed with a practiced flick of her hand. 

She raises the gun towards the door again and shouts over the din, “come on in, you assholes. I’ve got unlimited ammo.”

A boot appears out from behind the door, deftly kicking the chair a little ways away. The door falls off its hinges completely as two men dive inside the room. She shoots at them, but she’s too slow and the pellets just spray the wall. They find cover quickly; one man cowers behind the chair and the other, the broken door. Cass herself ducks back down to reload just as the first shot rings over her head. It’s something small, she can tell from the sound. She sneaks a quick glance just as the second man pulls his gun: a shitty, unmaintained .22. Without thinking, she levels the gun where his head just starts to appear.

There’s four simultaneous screams: one, Cass’s shotgun; two, the raider’s .22; three, the raider’s cries as the spray hits home and four, Cass’s surprised yell as the .22 round enters her left shoulder and embeds itself in her flesh. 

The raider falls flat, dead as Cass slumps behind the table, cradling her shoulder as tears fill her eyes - a physiological response to the pain and not a sign of weakness, she reaffirms to herself - and blood begins to seep through her fingers. The heavy denim jacket and the flannel shirt underneath took the majority of the impact in what is, thankfully, a low-penetrating shot. She grunts as she lets go over her shoulder and roots around in her pocket for another shell. Her arm hangs limply at her side as she holds the shell between her teeth. Using a combination of her good arm, her elbow and her knees, Cass opens the hinge and knocks out the spent shot. Another bullet from the remaining raider zips over her head before she can flick the gun shut. 

“Shit,” she curses, her head thunking back against the table.

The man fires another two shots as the pain makes Cass’s vision swim. Suddenly, she hears the sound of the door shifting. The man is getting up, coming over because he thinks she’s dead. She shuts her eyes and lets her head fall limp, but still cradles her gun in her hands. She watches through her lashes as the man comes around the side of the table and gingerly steps closer to her. He kicks her boot and waits. Apparently satisfied, the man turns to head out the door as Cass steadies her grip and fires a shell at point blank range into the man. He falls, silent and still. 

Now alone, she lets her guard slip for just a moment as she hisses and cradles the wound in her shoulder. It could’ve been a lot worse, she realizes; .22 calibre shots have a tendency to bounce around in a person and come apart. Thanks to the thick denim of her jacket, the bullet’s just stuck a little ways down into the flesh of her shoulder. It’s bleeding and it hurts like hell, but she can grit her teeth and force herself to continue using her arm and there’s no danger of her bleeding out. 

She can’t stop to rest for long, there’ll be more men coming soon and unless she moves Cass knows that she has no chance of surviving long enough to reach Razor. Rolling on to her knees, Cass heaves her body to her feet and trudges out of the room. She can hear muffled shouting out in the breezeway. Cass kicks down the door of the next room and immediately takes cover behind the wall outside the room. When no gunfire rings from inside the room, she takes a deep breath and slowly peeks inside. The room is empty, save for a doe-eyed addict looking back at her. His eyes are staring straight at her face, but he’s too far gone to even know she’s there.

As she steps out in the breezeway again, a shot rings out from the courtyard. Cass’s instincts fire up and her body is down on the floor and taking shelter behind a railing before her conscious mind is even aware of it. When her brain finally catches up to her body, she realizes that the shot had never even been aimed at her. There was no sound of a bullet hitting the wall behind her, no sound of the zip near her. Carefully, she peeks out from behind the railing. Her eyes widen as she sees Razor standing out in the courtyard with four of his men, all staring in her direction and all with weapons and itching fingers. 

“Hey, Old Lady, I know that’s you out there. C’mon out!”

Not seeing any other option, Cass slowly stands up and, still cradling her gun, heads for the staircase off to her right side. She takes the stairs slowly, deliberately, as if she’s not in any kind of hurry. And she’s not, not really; she wanted to take on Razor, but the additional manpower at his side was not what she had in mind. Three out of the four have guns, and between them there’s a .38, a .22 and a shotgun not dissimilar to hers. The four man has a baseball bat and under most circumstances it’s not an intimidating weapon but, he’s wrapped a heavy chain around the head and Cass can still see dried blood on the links. Razor’s gun is a pistol, but it’s still in its holster and Cass files away the thought that one of the other handguns - she assumes the .38 - now has one less bullet until it needs to be reloaded. 

Her heart thumps in her chest as she reaches the bottom step. She moseys out into the open, fingers gripping her shotgun in a white-knuckled grasp. She can’t appear too ready, because these men have her outgunned and got the drop on her. Yet, she knows this may be her one opportunity to take out Razor before she gets gunned down. 

“You got nerve comin’ here, Ol’ Woman.”

Cass says nothing. Razor’s puttin’ on a big show, either for his men or for himself. Still, it sounds hollow in Cass’s ears. He’s threatened. Perhaps he never truly expected anyone to try and gun him down on his own turf, or maybe he figured the big guy out front was sufficient enough protection from people who wanted to do him harm. Either way doesn’t really matter much; all that does is whether or not Cass can squeeze her trigger before his boys can. 

“Tired of being a pretend hero, is that it? Thought you could just come in here and what, take me out?”

She runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek and shifts her weight to her other foot. “Yeah,” she mutters. “Something like that.”

“Well, looks like my boys gave you some trouble,” he sneers, staring at the red blossom on her shoulder. “I’m afraid you’re shit out of luck. In fact…” he looks over her shoulder and Cass feels her blood run cold as a stupid grin breaks out on to his ugly face. “You’re double Ess-oh-el. Come on over, Cole.”

The man known as Cole appeared just in Cass’s peripheral sight as a vision of ridiculous, eye-catching blue. With fringe on his sleeves and across his back, Cass can’t help the snort that rises up from her throat and erupts from her nose. Finally, she sees his face and realizes that Cole is Cocky Asshole. The little mirth she had at his clothes dies, replaced with an anxious edge. The man in front of her is Razor’s problem solver, his hired gun. And, with men like him it’s hard to tell if the lies obscure the truth, or, enhance it. But, Cass knew from the moment he showed up at her stall that she’d have to deal with him and, killing him meant keeping Ryo safe. 

“We meet again, Rose of Sharon,” he says as he tips his hat to her. 

“You steal that from an Old World ghoul?” she asks, trying not to show the trepidation that’s slowly beginning to slide through her veins. 

“You like it? People always said I had the old world blues.”

“Cute.”

Cole chuckles as he takes up the spot next to Razor. With the two men directly in front of her, and their boys on either side, Cass can’t help the way her breath shifts in her chest. She puts her head down for a moment, her mind moving as fast as she can will it to. At this moment, she’d give one of her limbs - probably the one with the bullet stuck in it - for a mind that worked as well as Arcade’s, or for an eye as steady as Boone’s. But, her friends always said that she made up for it in pure stubbornness. She lifts her gaze back to the men, drumming her fingers nonchalantly against the wood of her firearm. She takes a step to the left, as if strolling casually and studies their reactions. They watch her carefully, but none seem overly alert to the fact that she’s trying desperately to get the upper hand. 

“Y’know, I’m afraid I just don’t understand why you’re gunning for the kid,” she says, still casually moving. She shifts her direction slightly, as if she’s just pacing around.

“He destroyed my property,” Razor seethes. 

Cass steps backwards, her hip brushing up against the side of a burnt out car. “Eh, how much damage could one kid do?”

She notices the way that Cole’s face curls up into a smirk, as Razor’s turns red, then purple. “Doesn’t matter,” he seethes. 

She stops moving just as her hip presses against the back end of the car. Razor steps forward, once then twice and Cass’s heart begins to flutter inside her chest. “Y’know that he’s why I’m here.”

“What, you want to bargain? Beg me for the kid’s life?”

A smile spreads across her lined face. “Nope.”

Without warning, Cass raises her gun as fast as she can and fires her shotgun at Razor’s face. He’s point blank with her, and the deafening roar of her gun mingles with sharp scream that erupts from what used to be Razor. It’s silenced quickly as he falls to the ground, dead. 

The rest of them look at Cass for a moment and its as if time slows down around them. The realization of what she just did to their boss slowly slides over their faces and their guns raise towards her. Cass dives for the other side of the car just as bullets pellet the area she had just occupied. She swears that in the explosion of gunfire, she can hear Cole laughing. 

She peeks up from her hiding spot to see all of the - living - men have headed for cover. One of his boys pops their head out from behind a pillar and fires a couple of potshots at her with his .22. Cass tries to count how many shots he’s fired since the firefight began, but her head is swimming and unfocused. She flicks her gun open, reloads the shell and snaps it closed as she sees who else might pop out from hiding. The .38 peers out from behind a couple of barrels, aims at her - and Cass ducks - but doesn’t fire. The sound of metal clanging in front of her draws her attention. Her head whips back just in time to see the man with the baseball bat has circled around and tried to get the drop on her. The bat swings and collides with the side of the car as Cass sharply rolls out of the way. She kicks out, her boots connecting with the man’s shin. He stumbles back and Cass squeezes the trigger. With the chain wrapped around it, the bat can’t roll out of the way when it falls from the man’s lifeless hand, so Cass kicks it away before she crawls back into her spot. She’s distinctly aware that she can’t figure out where Cole is hiding. He’s quiet, quick and dangerous. With her shotgun reloaded she lifts her head up and sees the man with the .22 trying to crawl closer to her. It seems unfair to shoot him as he isn’t even lookin’ at her, but there’s little time for fairness. But, as she fires her shotgun, she’s aware that there’s another sound that shouldn’t be and something makes her body stagger backwards. Her side explodes with white-hot pain and Cass can’t help the cry that claws its way up her throat. She clutches at her right side with one hand and drops back down behind the car. 

Her breath is ragged and it feels as if the very air itself is thick and impossible to pull into her lungs. Suddenly, she’s aware that the hand gripping her side is wet. As she pulls it away, Cass realizes that her palm is red. She looks down as best she can. There’s a wound on her side, open and bleeding. Relief floods her as she realizes there’s no hole. It’s a graze, a close one, but still not a hole. Luckily for her, whoever shot her was a not a good marksman. 

“Oh, that looked like that hurt!” she hears a voice calling out. It’s Cole and from the sound of him, he’s close. 

“Just a graze,” she shouts, trying to keep her voice even. “Was that you?”

“Oh no, that was Val. If it was me, I would have hit you properly, but y’know he tries.”

“Well, tell Val that I’m going to thank him properly in a minute.”

Cole chuckles, but says nothing. A shot rings over her head, coming from her left. She picks up a nearby stick and pushes it between her teeth as she rolls over on to her good side which, unfortunately, contains her wounded shoulder. Her teeth dig into the wood as she bites back a scream. Breathing hard, she forces herself to crawl, using her feet to push her heavy body along until she can look out the other side of the car. Val steps out from behind cover, and like all the others, Cass guns him down. Finally, she collapses. Her vision swims, but she swears she can hear…clapping. Heavy boots stomp into her vision and it takes what feels like the last of Cass’s energy to move her eyes to look up at Cole, who’s smirking down at her. 

“Well done, Rose of Sharon,” he crows as he kneels down closer to her. “Oh, but you’re hurt. Tsk tsk.” His face twists up into a caricature of someone caring as he drags his hand along Cass’s left arm. “Is this your hurt shoulder?” he asks, as if the blood wasn’t enough evidence for him. 

All at once, his hand seizes the wound and squeezes. Cass screams, more from the sudden shock of pain than anything else. Her head thunks back against the pavement as block spots ebb around her vision. She groans, reaching for her shotgun. If she can put a bullet in Cole, it’ll all be over. The threat to Ryo will be dealt with and she can die with peace. 

“Nah uh,” Cole tuts at her. He wrenches the gun from her grasp and chucks it away from them. “Y’know it doesn’t suit the infamous Rose of Sharon to be lying here behind a car. Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

He stands to his full height and grabs her left arm. Cass clenches her teeth shut so tightly she can feel them grinding together. She won’t give him the satisfaction of her scream. He chuckles and begins to pull. Whiteness covers her eyes and her stomach roils as the pain flies across her nerves and spreads from her shoulder through every inch of her body. Cass groans, swallowing the shriek that threatened to spill from her lips. It feels like hours, days, but finally he’s got her where he wants her and he drops the arm. Once again, her head thuds against the concrete. 

“You know, I really should be thanking you?”

Cass doesn’t answer.

“Yeah, I wanted to take Razor out for ages now. This is a nice operation he’s got. You saved me a whole heap of trouble. So, I’ll give you something.”

Cass still doesn’t answer. 

“I’ll leave the kid alone. Scout’s honor.”

“Why?”

“Well, that was Razor’s vendetta. Wasn’t my product he destroyed, lab’s already back to working - well, once I hire a new cook - so, no harm and no foul.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a large, black flask. Cole takes a draw from it before offering it in her direction: “whiskey?”

“Please.”

He chuckles and tosses the flask to her, it lands on her chest.

“And what do you want from me in exchange for the Kid’s safety?”

He chuckles. “That Courier of yours, took over New Vegas because she got those Securitrons on her side. That’s what I want. Tell me how to hack those robots and I’ll leave the kid alone.”

She scoffs, but it sounds more like a deep breath. “I don’t know how to do that. That was some kind of arrangement the Courier made.”

“Now, I thought that you were a reasonable woman,” he sneers, take a step closer to her. His boot connects with the wound on her side and Cass’s world goes dark for a moment. He’s pressing deeper, harder against the torn flesh and it takes every ounce Cass has to keep from screaming. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’m putting another hole in you.”

“I told you, I _don’t know_!”

Cole chuckles before he brings his foot down violently against her femur. A sound, like a crack, calls out from far away but Cass’s mind has stopped and she can’t quite make it out. Finally, her mind catches up to her body and cries out in pain. Her leg is broken, she’s sure of it. He takes the right pistol out of its holster and kneels down beside her. She curses him with every expletive she can muster up the energy to say as he presses the barrel against her right shoulder. The sound of the hammer being cocked back is the loudest thing Cass has ever heard. She whimpers, which sounds faintly pneumatic in the thick, heavy air. She swears she hears a hiss, the soft whirring of something so familiar she can almost taste it. 

Veronica. 

She smiles to herself; it’s the end, she’s dying and at last Veronica has come to take her away. Her eyes are heavy, but she opens them as wide as she can when she feels the gun ease its pressure against her shoulder. Cole cries out in alarm, and Cass smiles as she watches Veronica’s powerfist arc through the sky and nail him square in the jaw. The sickening crack of his head hitting the pavement feels like relief. 

“Veronica,” she whispers.

Then, Cass feels a sharp, stinging pinch in her thigh. Seconds later, coldness flows throughout her; the constant, dull ache in every part of her body fades and is replaced by something warm, fuzzy. It’s Med-X, she realizes suddenly. As she protests, another sting hits her and she knows it’s a stimpack. Her mind clears enough for her to look over and see Ryo standing over her, Veronica’s powerfist strapped to his arm. He saved her life.

“Kid? What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Saving your ass, what does it look like?”

“I told you, I didn’t want to survive this. I don’t have anything to live for anymore.”

“You have _me_ ,” he pleads, his small hand with all its youthful softness grips her forearm.

Cass hesitates. “I- I told you that it was for your own good, Ryo. Can’t you see I’m not…whole?”

“You think I am? We’re _family_ , Cass. You don’t leave family behind.”

“Family?” she whispers. 

“You were ready to die for me. I think that makes us family.”

Cass’s lip curls up in what is as close to a smile as she can manage. Her eyes, however, are still conflicted. Her gaze is glued to Ryo and a million things try to jam their way through her mind at once. On the forefront of her mind is the sheer, instinctual ’ _no_ ’ that echoes loudly and without mercy. She can’t possibly be family to anyone; that time in her life passed with Veronica. As far as she was concerned, she was just counting the days until they could be reunited.

The powerfist strapped to Ryo’s arm lets out a quick hiss, as if voicing its opinion of her conclusion. She stares at it, then at the kid wearing it. Veronica won’t mind; in fact, Cass realizes, Veronica would be thrilled. Even on her deathbed she had begged Cass to keep on living. But, it’d always been impossible. Now, she had someone to live for and someone to protect and who would do his best to protect her in turn.

Her cheeks puff out from the large breath that she forces herself to exhale. Her hands shake as she fumbles for the flask. The deep lines of her forehead pool with the sweat that drips down her brow. If she doesn’t have a drink, she feels like she’ll jump out of her skin. The little opening presses against her lips and she tips her head back to take a deep draw. The instant, palpable relief she feels as it hits her tongue is short lived as Ryo smacks it out of her hands. She fixes him with a deathly glare. “You better have a good reason for doing that, kid.”

“You’re done with that, you hear me? I lost my mom to jet, I’m not losing you too,” his face is severe, with dark eyes that threaten thunder and lightning. 

She sighs. “I’ll try, Ryo. Okay? Good enough?”

“For now,” he replies. His attention turns to Cole, lying in a pool of blood on the pavement. “He dead?”

Cass kicks his foot inelegantly. He doesn’t move. “Yep. Help me up, kid?”

She tries to hold it together as Ryo helps her clamber to her feet. The Med-X helps, but it won’t stop the pain from blossoming through her when she moves around. She slides her right arm around Ryo’s shoulders and together, the two of them make their way back to Cass’s apartment in comfortable silence. 

* * *

Three months later sees Cass’s wounds nearly healed, thanks to Julie Farkas’s skilled hands. The Doc was able to put a cast on her broken leg and rustle up a pair of crutches for her to hobble around on for a month. The bullet in her shoulder required surgery, which mostly consisted of hefty doses of Med-X and a stick pressed between Cass’s teeth. Julie got the metal piece out, but the area is still stiff and even after three months, Cass still can’t lift her arm all the way up. The graze to her side was an easy fix, just stitches and a stimpack. Plus, it left behind a shining pink scar with a hell of a story behind it. 

True to his word, Ryo was adamant that Cass give up the drinking. And, per Julie’s instructions, Cass had started to cut back on her consumption. Quitting cold turkey, she was told, was likely to shock her system too hard. So, she and Ryo had come to a compromise. 

“Is this all the boxes?” Ryo asks, interrupting Cass’s reverie. 

“Yeah, unless you had some more stuff from downstairs.”

Ryo shrugs, a lazy grin sweeping across his features. “How many boxes can we take?”

Cass chuckles and reaches across the gap between their bodies to lay her weathered hand on top of Ryo’s. She squeezes the back of his hand as she replies, “we’re going to take everything you want, even if I have to go out and buy another brahmin myself.”

As time passed the two of them by, they realized that the Mojave held too many ghosts. With Ryo, his few happy childhood memories were tinged by the addiction and death of his mother. He’d confessed to Cass one night, in tears, that he was terrified of becoming just like her. Cass had her memories of Veronica and while most of them were happy, the memory of her death haunts Cass nearly every moment of the day. The following morning, they decided it was time to leave the Mojave behind. Cass bought a brahmin, and they immediately set to packing. 

She watches as Ryo picks up the last box to haul downstairs. Her eyes linger on the hissing metal encasing his hand and a smile slides its away across her face. She follows him downstairs, gingerly. Veronica’s holotags jangle against her neck as she hops the last step out of habit. Without a lot of ceremony, Cass pokes the brahmin into gear and the three of them set off. It’s an odd sort of feeling that fills Cass as her apartment gets smaller and smaller behind her. She’s a little fearful and a little uneasy, as they hadn’t really talked about where they wanted to go. Yet, the biggest part of Cass feels something like satisfaction as the Mojave sand crunches beneath her feet and the boy beside her looks up at her with something that could very well be love in his eyes. Cass smiles to herself as she and Ryo walk into the great distance ahead of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this. I really hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> I've had this idea in my head for a LOONG time now. I'm a sucker for 'ordinary stories in extraordinary settings', and I'm a bigger sucker for stories that take place years after the canon ends. I like to imagine what happens to our favorite characters years and years down the line. And, I really love Cass. I think she's a delicate mix of two distinct, warring halves and I don't think enough people give her non-gritty side enough credit. 
> 
>  
> 
> As always, you can find me on my tumblr at [dear-miss-adair](http://dear-miss-adair.tumblr.com). Come say hi to me! :)


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